The East Harlem Purple Gang of the 1970s killed its way into the history books, just like its predecessors in Detroit back in the bootlegging days. The New York “Purples” served as a “JV Mob” of sorts, doing contact work for all Five Families in the city’s Italian mafia and several major African-American drug organizations. Many of the Purples went on to become mafia powers in the Genovese, Bonanno and Lucchese crime families in the coming years. The East Harlem Purples was a group known for its proficiency in the murder-for-hire trade and leveraging its muscle for weight in the burgeoning dope game of the area. Acclaimed true-crime author delves into the NY Purples’ legacy and raw lethality in his new book, Hitmen — The East Harlem Purple Gang, The Mafia & Drugs.

The East Harlem Purple Gang Hit List (1971-1984)

September 4, 1971 — New York wiseguy Anthony Lombardi is shot death inside the Regency Social Club in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx.

July 29, 1972 — Groom-to-be Anthony Cammareri is killed in a bar fat inside the Drake Hotel’s Shepherd’s Bar after Cammareri got into a heated verbal spat with members of the Purple Gang while celebrating his bachelor party.

August 10, 1972 — Purple Gangers and first-cousins Phillip (Big Phil) Manfredi & Phillip (Little Phil) Manfredi are shot to death at a vacant impound lot located in Clason Point section of the Bronx.

April 21, 1973 — New York wiseguy Al Soto is killed in the Bronx by a Purple Gang-feeder group known as the Ministers.

August 13, 1973 — Purple Ganger Edward (Eddie Rand) Sheffer is killed in a cab in the Bronx. His body was found in Long Island two weeks later. 

December 24, 1973 — Drug dealer George (Georgie 500) Toutoian is found lying dead in a vacant lot on Bassett Avenue in the Bronx, shot twice in the back of the head and stabbed 14 times.

March 14, 1974 — Purple Ganger John (Buster) Dellavalle is found buried in Greene County upstate in New York.

April 27, 1974 — Genovese soldier Pasquale (Big Pat) Pagano is shot to death in Throggs Neck.

April 28, 1974 — Drug dealer Mike Costenza is found dead, shot to death and hogtied in the trunk of his car in Queens at John F, Kennedy Airport.

October 1, 1974 — Purple Gangers Johnny (The Monk) Anzisi and Williams (Pepe) O’Neill are gunned down inside the Ali Baba Social Club in Manhattan’s Sutton Place neighborhood.

August 31, 1975 — Purple Ganger Frank (Scoopy) Ciappetta is shot to death changing his tire in the Bronx at the corner of Westchester and Edison Avenues.

December 3, 1975 — Drug dealer Salvatore (Sally Moon) Tomasetti is killed inside the Newspaper Employees Association Social Club in Manhattan in the shadow of the United Nations building.

December 21, 1975 — “Junior Purple Ganger” Carmine Lania is killed outside his New Rochelle, New York home. He was the son of Purple Gang bigshot Salvatore Lania. His car is found abandoned at JFK Airport.

January 17, 1976 — New York mob associate Tommy Palermo is killed, stuffed in the trunk of his car and left at JFK Airport. Palermo’s rotting corpse was found in March. He was robbing fellow mobsters and was famous for burglarizing singer Frankie Valli’s mansion with Valli&#

8217;s wife and children tied up inside.

February 14, 1976 — Retired Judge Jack Prizzia dies in the hospital after being shot in the back of the head in a Union City, Jersey office building weeks earlier.

April 4, 1976 — Purple Gang members and personal rivals Anthony Maiorino and Leonard Fillipone are both killed in a shootout in the Capri Lounge, the unofficial Purple Gang headquarters in the Bronx on Williamsbridge Road.

April 10, 1976 — New York wiseguy Joe (Butch) Messina is shot to death inside the Chateau Pelham, another restaurant and club popular with Purple Gangers.

June 2, 1976 — Elderly housewife, Caroline Nadel is shotgunned to death inside the home of her son-in-law, independent Rockland County garbage boss Natale Schettino, who was in a longstanding dispute with Genovese capo Joseph (Monsey Joe) Pagano over trash pick-up routes in the region.

July 1, 1976 — New York wiseguy Vinnie Capone is shot to death in his car stopped at a traffic light in Hoboken, New Jersey.

July 29, 1976 — New York wiseguy Carmine Pugliese is killed behind the wheel of his Cadillac.

August 3, 1976 — Purple Gang lieutenant Arthur (Little Artie) Fiore’s severed head is found outside LaGuardia Airport. His headless torso was found in a Maspeth, Queens car-repair shop.

September 24, 1976 — Lucchese capo Andimo (Tony Noto) Pappadio is shotgunned to death outside his Lido Beach, New York home.

January 20, 1977 — Asian surveillance specialist Frank (Bok Chung) Chin is shot to death in the parking garage of his Manhattan office building walking to his Mercedes.

February 8, 1977 — New York mob associate Arthur (The Lottery King) Millgram is shot to death outside the Mount Excelsior luxury apartment building in the Glen Oaks neighborhood of Brooklyn.

April 27, 1977 — Genovese mob power Carmine (Eli The Baker) Zeccardi disappears from his Elizabeth, New Jersey on his way to a meeting at Manhattan’s Caffe Roma in Little Italy.

May 22, 1977 — Genovese mob capo Dominick (Dom the Sailor) DiQuarto disappears after leaving a card game. DiQuarto was Zaccardi’s right-hand man and

November 3, 1977 — New York mob attorney Gino Gallina is gunned down outside his mother’s house in Greenwich Village.

May 31, 1978 — Sanitation company owner Gabe San Felice is killed in Old Bridge, New Jersey while in the midst of a garbage-route beef out of Rockland County with Monsey Joe Pagano’s trash business people.

November 1, 1978 — New York wiseguy Jimmy Queli is gunned down outside his home in North Arlington, New Jersey. He is killed with same gun (a 22-caliber pistol)that killed Chin, Vinnie Capone and Tommy Palermo. 

November 25, 1978 — Purple Gang-affiliate Maurice Anzisi and Theresa Panarese are shot to death in Anzisi’s car parked at Orchard Beach in the Bronx. Anzisi’s brother “Johhny the Monk” Anzisi had been killed

August 17, 1984 — Mob wife Evelina Mancuso is found dead on a bench outside Bronx Memorial Hospital. She was killed in a dispute with her husband, Purple Ganger Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso in the Country Club section of the Bronx.

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May 28, 2022 — Reputed Florida mob figure Jimmy Valenti died earlier this spring of natural causes. The 91-year old Valenti was alleged to be a member of Tampa’s Trafficante crime family, but had no criminal record. He passed in March surrounded by his loved ones.

Today, the Trafficante organization is considered, for all intents and purposes, shuttered by the FBI, despite Valenti’s friend and reputed Tampa mafia don Vince LoScalzo still being alive. Mafia crime families from New York, Eastern-European crime syndicates and Mexican-cartel backed drug gangs have increasingly filled the void in the area over the past 20 years. LoScalzo, 85, served as Santo Trafficante, Jr.’s driver and bodyguard and then reportedly took the reins from him when he died of a heart ailment in March 1987.

According to Florida State Police, LoScalzo inducted Valenti into the Trafficante crime family in the late 1980s. Before he retired, Valenti was vice president of Southern Wine & Spirits. a liquor distributorship company he was employed by for four decades.

FBI surveillance logs from the 1990s show Valenti meeting with LoScalzo on a regular basis at LoScalzo’s Mahalo Auto Sales on Nebraska Avenue in Tampa. Intelligence reports from the era describe him as a protege of distinguished Tampa mob capo Francis (Dandy Frank) Diecidui and an associate of Trafficante gambling lieutenant Lou Caggiano. Dandy Frank Diecidui died in October 1994.

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A former Wall Street crook with ties to the Mafia allegedly set up two dozen fake cancer charities across the country and scammed donors out of more than $150,000, prosecutors charge.

Starting in 2014, Ian Hosang, 63, of Staten Island, began establishing fake non-profits with legitimate-sounding names, including “American Cancer Society for Children” and “United Way of New York Inc.,” but donations never went to medical research or community outreach, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

Instead, he “lined his own pockets,” DA Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.

Hosang was arrested May 9 and arraigned in Brooklyn Supreme Court on 12 counts of grand larceny, three counts of identity theft and one count of scheme to defraud. He was released without bail.

He received slaps on the wrist in previous run-ins with the law over charity schemes — In 2018, North Dakota and Washington dissolved Hosang’s phony charities, and barred him from establishing any more, SILive reported. Three years later, the Michigan Attorney General Office dissolved 10 of his entities, the Mining Journal reported. 

He now faces seven years in prison if convicted.

Prior to his charity scams, Hosang was a wannabe Jordan Belfort.

In a 1997 complaint federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Hosang of being the ringleader of a pump-and-dump stock scheme, and claimed one of his partners, Frank Mancini, was connected to the Gambino crime family, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Hosang’s “stockbrokers” were just potheads he found on the subway, and he and Mancini once beat a rival broker and hung him upside down out of a ninth floor window, The Journal reported.

Hosang pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and money laundering charges in 1999. He served 12 years in federal prison, SILive reported.

Hosang’s lawyer, Paul Martin, refused to comment.

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